Page 13 of The Runaway Heiress
His words set off a spark within her and momentary bout of bashfulness began to fade away. She laid back and his hand automatically moved to rest on her stomach. “So maybe for tonight we can pretend you have run away with me,” she said.
Something deep and visceral crossed his face and his hand tightened in her chemise. It was her only warning before his mouth crushed hers.
“Ow!”
Gray pulled back immediately at her cry of pain. “Your gun,” she explained in a whisper, already reaching to pull him back. It had dug painfully into the soft flesh of her hip.
Gray sat on his knees to untie the leather thong from his thigh and unbuckle his gun belt, hardly waiting for it to drop to the bare wood floor before he was on her again. His clothed body covering her almost naked one.
“Sorry,” he whispered against her mouth.
She welcomed the weight of him on her and parted her lips to his kiss. His tongue swept into her mouth, filling her body with a new level of excitement because now she knew the kiss was only the beginning. But soon his lips left hers to brush hot, open-mouthed kisses across her cheekbone to the lobe of her ear anddown her neck. A calloused hand moved roughly to push the chemise down her shoulder and then even lower until her nipple strained against the fabric briefly before pushing free. The hand immediately covered her lush breast and kneaded, surprisingly gentle despite his urgency. His thumb moved slowly over the pebbled tip.
Sophie arched into his touch. He was still kissing her neck but she remembered what his mouth felt like on her breast and wanted to feel it again. So she twined her fingers in his hair and pulled him down to the one he had just exposed to the night. His husky laughter caressed her skin, making it prickle, but he obliged and in moments she felt the moist heat of his mouth close over her. The tug of his lips brought about an immediate twinge of pleasure she felt deep in her core.
When his teeth scraped her, she arched involuntarily against him.
He responded by grinding his hips against her thigh. The hard ridge of his manhood pressed hot against her and she instinctively knew she wanted, needed, to get to that. Her hands left his hair and in moments one had found a gap between them and had moved down to feel him through the soft fabric of his pants.
“Ah, Sophie,” he gasped against her skin.
She chewed her bottom lip and let her palm slide along the ridge, marveling at his length and how he responded to her touch. His hips bucked lightly against her stroke so she experimented with her power and squeezed gently, wringing a strangled cry of pleasure from him. But then he pressed himself firmly against her thigh, stopping any further play on her part.
“Don’t stop, mon coeur.I need you.”
His mouth took hers hard one more time before pulling away, stopping only to hook a finger in the second strap of her chemise and tug it down, exposing her other breast. Gray placed a tenderkiss on the pink nipple before leaving her to sit on the edge of the bed.
His boots fell with two soft thuds onto the hard floor before he stood and worked the buttons of his shirt. His skin gleamed in the low light as he shrugged out of it and tossed it to the chair to join her pile of clothes. Sophie’s lips parted in surprise when she saw the twin tattoos. They were various geometrical shapes etched in a black band around each of his biceps.
Shirtless, wearing nothing but his trousers, and with his hair hanging loose except for the one braid, he was beautiful. She moved to her knees in front of him, torn between wanting to see more of him and needing to touch what she had only imagined before. Her fingertips lightly trailed over the peaks and dips of his smooth chest before her palms dared to press against the warm flesh.
“You’re so beautiful, Gray.” If there was ever a finer specimen of a man’s chest, she had not seen it. Not in any of the books on Grecian art she had studied or even on the occasional shirtless man she had seen at the stables. Or maybe it was only that this was Gray’s chest and, somehow over the past months, he had become the standard by which all men were measured.
Her palms moved down over the hard ridges of his stomach, fascinated by how he was so different from her. Hard where she was soft. They came to a stop at the waistband of his pants and she felt him draw in a deep breath.
“Can I?” Her tentative blue eyes met his hot gray ones.
“You have to know I’m at your mercy.” His intense gaze pierced hers.
She smiled and slowly pulled at the fastening. Her breath hitched when she saw the first sprinkling of dark hair. She pushed down but the pants caught. His hands came up to work them past his erection and then it sprang free, perfectly upright and reaching for his navel.
Sophie slowly reached for him, surprised and faintly apprehensive about his size. He was hot in her palm and jerked slightly when she held him. Steel encased with satin. A tiny bead of moisture gathered at the tip and she couldn’t resist rubbing it with her thumb. She looked up to gauge his reaction.
“Lie back.” His eyes had gone hooded and his voice brooked no argument, but she was more than willing to comply. Her insides felt like they had turned molten and she ached between her legs where before she had only felt tingles of awareness.
She should have been far past blushing but she felt herself do just that when Gray’s fiery gaze devoured her before bracing a knee on the mattress and gripping her drawers. But he paused as her gaze met his.
“You knew I was watching you undress?” he asked.
She had the grace to smile sheepishly as she confessed, “I knew.”
He smiled, too, a wicked, sinful thing, and tugged. She lifted her hips to help and her drawers quickly joined the growing pile of clothes on the chair.
“Gray.” She squirmed now, wanting him in a way she couldn’t name.
His face gave nothing away as his gaze raked her body before he slowly leaned down. His lips brushed her thighs and then placed a tender kiss on the golden curls at their apex. His fingers pushed up the cotton chemise so he could kiss her belly, tongue dipping into her navel, before placing an open-mouthed kiss of possession on each nipple and finally making his way to her mouth. She felt his urgency when his knee worked its way between her unresisting, but suddenly hesitant, thighs and he settled himself between them.Thatpart of him seemed to have a life of its own and brushed against her.
“Look at me, Sophie.” His words brought her gaze to his, only inches above her. He didn’t smile, but his eyes were tender ashis hand moved between them. Her eyes widened as she felt his fingers touch her where she ached and she would have closed her thighs except his body was between them. She gasped aloud when he suddenly sheathed a finger inside her. It intensified the aching there. She tried to move with his finger but his weight pressed her down so she only managed to grind herself against him. But, oh, the friction felt so good.
